Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Tokyo Paralympic Digest: Great Britain shocks USA to win wheelchair rugby
Great Britain's wheelchair rugby team edged out favorites USA to win gold in one of the most visceral sports in the Paralympics. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's athletes have made an emotional arrival in Tokyo.
Popularized by the documentary film ' Murderball', wheelchair rugby is a game of chaos, crashes and drama. All were in plentiful supply on Sunday as Great Britain upset the odds to beat the USA to the gold medal.
The game was tight for long periods until Team GB edged clear in the final quarter, with Stuart Robinson, a former Royal Air Force (RAF) gunner who lost both his legs to an IED in Afghanistan, to the fore. The score ended up 54-49.
A fast-paced spectacle, wheelchair rugby was developed more than 50 years ago in Canada, but saw its popularity rise after the famous 2005 documentary .
The constant mayhem, the crashes and players being dumped upside down in their chairs, distracts from the fact that these athletes have spinal cord injuries, they're missing arms and legs, and they're strapped into wheelchairs that resemble battered bumper cars.
The USA have been in every Paralympic final ever contested, whereas Great Britain had never won a medal in the sport. Hosts Japan, who were also among the favorites before the event, beat Australia 60-52 to claim the bronze.
Germany news
It took Germany five days to claim their first Paralympic gold on Sunday but only 77 minutes to follow that up with a second.
Early in the morning, triathlete Martin Schulz crossed the finish line first in temperatures of over 30 degrees and humidity of over 80%.
"I'm very happy, everything came up for me. It was a nice race," Schulz, who has been missing a forearm since birth, said afterwards. For the 31-yearold, it was his second victory at the Paralympics after Rio 2016.
A little over an hour later, Valentin Baus doubled Germany's gold medal tally with a much more surprising table tennis victory over Cao Ningnin, of China. There was also a silver for Frances Herrmann in the women's javelin F34.
Gold medals
Daniel Romanchuk claimed gold by the smallest of margins in the Men’s T54 400m, edgind out Athiwat Paeng-Nuea of Thailand by one hundreth of a second.
China continued to dominate the medal tabel, with team wins in archery and fencing among a plethora of individual golds. Great Britain stay the best of the rest, after winning several other events.
News from Tokyo
Afghanistan's Zakia Khudadadi and Hossain Rasouli arrived in Tokyo in tears after they were evacuated to France last weekend from the Talibancontrolled country in a "major global operation", the International Paralympic Committee said.
"The meeting at the athletes' village was extremely emotional. There were lots of tears from everyone in the room," said IPC spokesperson Craig Spence.
Spence said the Afghan flag appearing at Tuesday's Opening Ceremony had been the "first step to keep the door open" to the athletes and their arrival was "a very strong message of hope to many others around the world".
Khudadadi will compete in the women's -49kg K44 taekwondo on Thursday. Sprinter Rasouli will take part in the men's T47 long jump on Tuesday having arrived too late for his favored T47 100m.